Wednesday, January 08, 2025 | 06:06 PM ISTEN Hindi

Plasma Bank

New gender-specific proteins could detect early-stage cancers, shows study

A sex-specific group of ten plasma proteins were found to detect 18 different early-stage cancers, representing all major organs of the body, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal Oncology. Researchers said that while cancers of kidney in men and colon in women were easier to detect using their test, bladder cancer in women and thyroid cancer in men were "more challenging but achieved with relatively high accuracy after optimisation". The proteins could also detect liver and ovarian cancers, among others. The research team at Novelna Inc, the US company that designed the test, found that while each of these proteins, by itself, was only moderately accurate at picking up the disease at an early stage, it was highly accurate when combined with other proteins in the group. They said that these proteins were particularly effective at picking up early-stage disease, even as they showed an ability to pick up stage I-III disease and all types of cancer. The team sa

Updated On : 10 Jan 2024 | 3:43 PM IST

India drops plasma therapy from Covid-19 management guidelines

The government on Monday revised the clinical guidance for COVID-19 treatment, dropping the off-label use of convalescent plasma as it was found not beneficial in reducing the progression to severe disease or death. The development came following a meeting of the ICMR-National Task Force for COVID-19 last week wherein all members were in favour of removing the use of convalescent plasma from the guidelines citing its ineffectiveness and inappropriate use in several cases. An Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) official said the task force "revised" the Clinical Guidance for Management of Adult COVID-19 Patients and "dropped convalescent plasma (off label)". The previous guidelines recommended off-label use of plasma therapy at the stage of early moderate disease, that is, within seven days of the onset of symptoms and if there is availability of a high titre donor plasma. The decision to remove it from the guidelines comes in the backdrop of some clinicians and scientists ...